She gulped to loosen it and got on with the excuses. “I’m fine. Wonderful. And Cece, I know I should have called. It’s been total craziness. I hope you’ll forgive me for being so thoughtless.”
“Oh, stop. There’s nothing to forgive. Just as long as you’re happy...”
“I am.” She gave Will another big, bright smile. “So happy. I know, it’s sudden. But it’s, um, what we both want. Did Will tell you? We’re at the ranch now. We moved in just this afternoon.”
“I hear it’s rustic.”
“Yeah, but it’s beautiful. I can’t think of any place on earth I’d rather be than here at the Flying C with Will.” Across the table, her for-the-moment husband nodded his approval.
“Well, then, congratulations to you both.”
“Thanks so much, Cece. Love you.”
“Love you, too—and we missed you last night.”
With a sigh of dismay, Jordyn remembered. “Omygosh. I don’t believe it. I missed the Newcomers Club.” She and Cece had formed the club a year before to help recent transplants to the community find friends and get involved in their new hometown. Jordyn hadn’t missed a meeting all year. “I’m so sorry. It totally slipped my mind.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it. It’s not a big deal. You are a newlywed, after all.”
Yeah, but not for long. “I should have been there.”
“Oh, come on. There’s always next month.”
Which would be her last month. By the September meeting, she would be settled in Missoula. Why did that make her sad? It was her new life, after all. And she was looking forward to it.
Cece seemed to read the direction of her thoughts. “Are you still running off to Missoula now?”
“I am not running off anywhere, thank you very much.”
Cece made a humphing sound and Jordyn could just picture her rolling her eyes. “Don’t get so sensitive. Let me rephrase. Are you still moving to Missoula to pursue your degree?”
“Yes, my plans are the same. Will won’t hear of my backing out on the education I’ve worked so hard for.” Across the table, Will saluted her with his beer can. She puffed out her cheeks and crossed her eyes at him and then went on. “It’ll only be for two semesters, and Missoula’s just a couple of hours away.”
“So you’ll be back often,” said Cece. “I know I can count on that, now that your husband’s here.”
Defensiveness curled in her belly. “Now, what is that supposed to mean?”
Cece released a slow, careful breath. “The truth is, I was worried that you’d take off for college and I’d hardly ever see you again. But now that you’re married to my brother, I know you have to come home. And that’s a very good thing.”
Home. Strange how Rust Creek Falls really did feel like home now.
However, when she left for Missoula, she had no plans to return. And by then, she wouldn’t be married to Cece’s brother anymore...
“Jordyn Leigh,” Cece prompted. “Are you still on the line?”
Jordyn shook herself. “I’m right here. I...well, I was just thinking that I don’t know how I’m going to bear being away from him. It’s going to so hard.” When she said that, Will put his hand against his heart and mimed frantic beating. She picked up her half-eaten pickle and threatened him with it. He played along and put up both hands in mock surrender. She stuck out her tongue at him, set the pickle back down and said to Cece, “He’s one of a kind, your brother.”
Cece groaned. “He’s a pain in the butt.”
Jordyn laughed. “But in a good way—the best way.”
“Wow, Jordyn Leigh. Look who’s changed her tune. He used to drive you crazy.”
“Oh, he still does. He really, really does...” She said that with over-the-top breathlessness. Will arched a brow and looked at her sideways. She should have left it at that, but she didn’t. She was kind of on a roll. “He’s so amazing, Cece. He’s so good and kind. And hot looking. And helpful. His kisses just blow me away. And when we’re alone, he—”
“Enough,” Cece warned. “I know you’re in love with him. I get that. But don’t give me too many details. He is my brother, after all.”
Jordyn winced. “Sorry. I think I got carried away...”
Across the table, Will sipped his beer and watched her through suddenly unreadable eyes.
Cece said, “Okay, I’ll let you go. I just had to check in, congratulate you both and tell you I love you.”
“Thanks. We’re fine. Happy. Glad to be here in our new home.”
“If you need anything...”
“I will call you if I do, I promise. Love you.”
“Bye.”
Jordyn turned off the phone and pushed it across to Will. She sipped her beer then picked up the other half of her sandwich. She felt...edgy now, her skin all prickly and hot.
Will leaned back in his chair and stretched a muscular arm out on the table beside his empty plate. “Wow, Jordyn Leigh. That was...impressive.”
All at once, she was totally annoyed with him. “Don’t get on me, Will. I’m just doing my best, playing my part.”
“Never said you weren’t.”
She plunked her sandwich back down without taking a bite. “If you’ve got something you want to say to me, well, you just go ahead and say it.”
He turned his beer can in a slow circle on the scarred surface of the old table. “Now you’re pissed off at me. Why?”
“I’m pissed off? No. Uh-uh. You are.”
“On the phone with my sister, you sounded way too grown-up. You almost had me convinced that you and I are good and...intimate. But now, three minutes later, you’re acting like a ten-year-old.”
I hate you, Will Clifton, she thought, but somehow managed not to say. Talk about childish behavior. She drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry. It’s what I said to Cece. I just kind of got carried away. You and me, we’re so busy fooling everyone, holding hands, kissing in Crawford’s, telling the world how happy we are. Sometimes it feels like I’m fooling myself, too.”
He stared at her for a long, very uncomfortable string of seconds. Then he shoved his plate aside, leaned toward her and stretched out his hand across the table. His lean fingers beckoned.
She gave him her hand. It felt good to have her hand engulfed in his big, rough, warm one.
Too good.
She ought to pull away.
But she didn’t. “Oh, Will. Should we really be doing this? I mean, it’s just a big lie.”
He scowled. “No, it’s not. We are married.”
“Let’s not go through all that again. Please.”
“Jordyn, if you’re having second thoughts, you need to tell me. We’ll deal with them.”
“It’s only... Sometimes it seems so real, you know, you and me? So natural, so right.”
“And that’s bad?”
“Well, it does kind of scare me. I get all confused between what’s real and what isn’t.”
He turned her hand over, smoothed her fingers open and drew a slow circle in the center of her palm. Talk about intimate. Her breath tangled in her throat, and a flush stole up her cheeks. She wished he might just keep on doing that for a very long time, keep holding her hand, brushing a sweet circle onto her skin.
And then he said, “This isn’t the first time you’ve acted like you want to call it off.”
“Call it off?” she repeated in a stark whisper.
He nodded. “I don’t like it, but I can accept that maybe this just isn’t something you’re willing to do. You can move back to the boardinghouse. We’ll tell everyone we realized it wouldn’t work, after all. But then, if there’s a baby, I want you to promise me that you’ll come back.”
Call it off...
Did she want
that?
They’d been “married” for just three days. Not only did she have to deal with her guilt over the lies they were telling, but sometimes when she told a lie, it came out seeming way too much like the truth.
The stuff she’d just said to Cece, for instance. About how wonderful Will was, how superhot and protective, how when he kissed her, she melted...
Well, she found it easy to tell those lies because those lies felt so very true.
It didn’t seem possible. She didn’t know how it had happened. But somehow, Will Clifton was beginning to look like her dream man.
And that was scary. That made her wonder if this temporary marriage could turn out to be way more dangerous than she’d realized at first—dangerous to her tender heart.
“Jordyn Leigh,” he prompted softly. “Are you ever going to answer my question?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
“Do you want to call it off?”
“No, Will,” she confessed in a small voice. “I don’t want to call it off. I don’t want to move back to the boardinghouse.”
He smiled at her then. Bam! That smile reached out across the table and wrapped itself around her heart. “All right, then. We’re still on.”
“Still on,” she answered in a voice that only wobbled a little.
“We get along,” he reminded her.
She agreed. “Yeah.”
“We like each other.”
She chuckled and gave his fingers a squeeze. “Well, most of the time.”
He remained completely serious. “We are married and it’s our marriage, the way we want it, for as long as it lasts.”
“Yes, Will.”
“We have an agreement.”
“We do,” she replied solemnly. “And we’ll stick to our plan...”
Chapter Seven
Will woke at the crack of dawn the next morning to the sound of a baby crying. The wailing seemed to be coming from the backyard.
“What in the...?” He jumped out of bed, yanked on his jeans and ran for the bedroom door that opened on to the back porch.
Three goats stood at the base of the back steps. One was a gestating doe. She was silent, gazing at him through big, wet, hopeful eyes. Another doe calmly nibbled at a sad-looking bush tucked up close to the steps. The third, a big, bearded billy, stared calmly at Will—and cried like a baby.
Literally. The damn goat sounded just like a wailing infant. And somehow, that critter managed to look damn pleased with himself as he did it.
Jordyn, wearing pink track pants with Juicy printed in silver foil across her butt, a Thunder Canyon Resort T-shirt and fat socks, bumped through the door from the kitchen. She gaped at the trio of animals and then groaned, “Goats?”
Will explained, “I think they may have been left by the previous owners. I heard they kept goats. These three probably got loose when they were trying to load them up to haul them away.” He grinned at her. She looked so cute in her pink pants and faded T-shirt, with her gold hair all tangled from sleep. “Good morning.”
“Mornin’. So will you call the previous owners to come and get them?”
“I will, yes.”
“Do you think they’ll come?”
“No idea.”
The billy kept bawling.
“He’s hungry,” she said. From the fence by the barn, a rooster suddenly crowed. “And don’t tell me. The previous owners kept chickens, too.”
“Yep.”
“What are we going to feed them?”
“I’ll corral the goats and buy them feed today—and I’ll get something for that rooster, too, and whatever other chickens might be wandering around.”
She wasn’t satisfied with that. “But that big one keeps crying. He’s hungry now—and you know they’re vulnerable to predators, just wandering around loose like that.”
“I can only do what I can do.”
She braced her fists on her hips and gave him one of those disgusted looks she’d been giving him practically since the day she was born. And then she mimicked, faking a deep voice, “I can only do what I can do. What is that supposed to mean?”
He just kept on grinning. Even cranky, she really did kind of brighten up the day. “It means they don’t appear to be starving. They’ll last on whatever they can forage until I feed them. And so far, they’ve done an okay job of avoiding any animal who might want to eat them.”
The billy must have figured out that Jordyn was the soft touch. He turned his knowing eyes on her and wailed all the harder.
“You are a heartless man, Will Clifton.” Jordyn went down the steps, her hand outstretched.
“You know you ought not to encourage them.”
She sniffed his suggestion away and plunked down on the bottom step. The goats moved in close, butting her hand, nuzzling her shoulder. She petted them and cooed, “Yes, you are nice guys. Will says he’ll feed you. You just have to be patient until he gets around to it, because he’s a big meanie, oh, yes, he is...”
“Watch out. One of them will eat those pink pants right off you.”
She sent him a cool glance over her shoulder. “Go put on a shirt.”
Stifling a laugh, he ducked back into his bedroom, where he grabbed a quick shower, put on his work clothes and ambled out to the kitchen. He found Jordyn loading up the coffeepot.
Yesterday at Crawford’s he’d bought the minimum to outfit the kitchen, including the coffeemaker, a set of sturdy pottery dishes, basic glassware, some flatware and utensils, two fry pans, three mixing bowls and a cute red toaster.
They whipped up breakfast together—well, she fried the sausage and scrambled the eggs. He set the table and burned the toast.
The billy goat serenaded them with baby wails as they ate, his bleating punctuated several times by the rooster’s crowing.
“I’ll clean up,” he said when she carried her plate and mug to the sink. “I know you need to get ready and get to town.”
She put down her dishes and turned to him. “Is there anything I can pick up at Crawford’s on the way back from work? I know you’ve got an endless list of stuff to buy and things to do.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got it all handled.”
She braced her hands on the sink rim behind her and crossed one stocking foot over the other. Her pretty breasts poked at that faded T-shirt, and he had to remind himself not to stare. “You paid for everything yesterday. It was a lot. I saw the bill when Mrs. Crawford rang it up.”
“I planned to buy that stuff. It’s all in the budget and not a problem.”
“It’s a huge undertaking, Will, outfitting a ranch.”
He realized he’d better make his situation clearer. “That money Aunt Willie left me? It was a lot. Plenty to buy this place and fix it up, build my herd, whatever I need, even a few luxuries if I happen to want them. And I have investments now, believe it or not. With what she left me, plus what I had saved up over the years, I’m doing just fine. You don’t need to worry if I can afford the feed for those freeloading goats out there.”
China-blue eyes widened. “Really?”
He nodded. “God’s honest truth.”
“Will Clifton, rich guy,” she said in a musing tone.
He looked her up and down, because she was a pure pleasure to look at, with pink in her cheeks and all that mussed-up yellow hair and that plump mouth he liked kissing. A lot. “You treat me right, little lady, and I’ll feed your goats for you.”
She blinked. “Oh, great. Now they’re my goats.”
“You were the one sitting on the step out there, talking baby talk to them.”
She gave him one of her why-do-I-put-up-with-you looks. “I think I’d better go get ready for work.”
He watched her go, the silver letters on her shap
ely butt bouncing with every step—not a lot, just enough to give any red-blooded man ideas. All those years, he’d thought of her as a baby sister, someone he needed to look out for. He’d always known it bugged her no end that he treated her like a kid.
Now, well, he still knew how to give her a bad time. However, he didn’t feel brotherly toward her in the least. Protective, yes. But it wasn’t the same as before. Not since those first moments by the punch bowl on the Fourth of July, when it hit him like a bolt from the blue that little Jordyn Leigh Cates wasn’t so little anymore. Uh-uh. Jordyn Leigh was all grown-up and looking mighty fine.
He might as well be honest with himself, at least. He was having a great time playing newlyweds with Jordyn Leigh.
But he knew he had to watch himself. If there was no baby, she would be gone before September. She had a dream, and she was going to fulfill it.
He wouldn’t stand in her way.
But he did wish he could remember all of Saturday night. Whatever had actually happened when they got back to Maverick Manor that night, he wanted those memories of her. He wanted to keep them for himself when she was long gone from Rust Creek Falls.
And thinking about Saturday night reminded him. He needed to make time to have a talk with someone at the sheriff’s office about his suspicions concerning that unknown cowboy in the white hat.
* * *
After Jordyn left for town, Will made some calls—to his Realtor concerning the abandoned goats and chickens, and to the local satellite company, who promised they could be out the next day to get him set up with TV and internet.
Once he’d handled the phone calls, he drove to Kalispell. He visited a grocery store, a feed store and a couple of department stores. By the time he was finished, he had another pickup load of stuff they needed right away at the Flying C. Basic living room furniture, a wide-screen TV and a washer/dryer combo would be delivered first thing in the morning.
He drove back to Rust Creek Falls and stopped in at the sheriff’s office, where he talked to a Kalispell detective named Russ Campbell. Campbell, Will learned, filled in at the sheriff’s office when Sheriff Gage Christensen needed him.
The Maverick's Accidental Bride (Montana Mavericks: What Happened At The Wedding Book 1) (Contemporary Cowboy Romance) Page 9
